


Hopes and Expectations

by sinkingsidewalks



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Modern Royalty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinkingsidewalks/pseuds/sinkingsidewalks
Summary: “I’m Phil.” The boy, Phil, says like Dan didn’t already know that.“Daniel,” Dan says, because that’s his name, which his parents named him, which he’s supposed to use in these situations, regardless of how little he actually likes being called it.“Will you be staying in the palace all summer as well?”Or: The one where Dan is the Crown Prince of England and Phil is the son of an ambassador who's come to stay for the summer.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I don't know what this is other than I got the idea of tiny Dan in a suit stuck in my head and I couldn't get it out.  
> This is set in mid!2000's rather than early!2000's because I am younger than Dan and Phil and therefore have no memory of pre-2005 and I didn't want to set it in the present because I didn't want them to have modern technology.
> 
> Yes the title is from that Muse song; yes it is super unoriginal.  
> This is a work of complete fiction.

By some small miracle of the universe it’s not raining in London. In fact, it’s as far from raining as the weather could possible get – the sun spills out over Kensington Gardens without a cloud in sight. Dan finds his heavy suit jacket – his black one, not the blue he’d wanted to wear that his mother had said no to - suffocating in the mid-July heat and almost cowers in the corner of the set up tent that was supposed to provide rain coverage but is instead giving shade to the party. 

Dan seems to be alone in his struggle though, as the rest of the party’s guests are happily chatting on the grass, out in the sunlight, seemingly unaware of the overwhelming, blistering heat. They must be robots, he decides, that’s the only way they can stand with the sun bearing down on them in shirts and jackets and trousers and shoes with socks on. Dan’s tie has felt like its’ been trying to strangle him since Nancy tied it onto him – retied, to be accurate, after he had done it himself and she had deemed it not neat enough. Another bead of sweat slides down the curve of his lower spine only to soak into the waist of his pants. It makes Dan shudder. 

One of the waiters looks over, catches Dan standing there – awkward and alone – and it makes him shrink in on himself. The waiter doesn’t say anything, just continues his quest to fill the space with as many lobster puffs as he can, but Dan feels self-conscious anyways. His posture catches another gaze though so he corrects it immediately, shifting his feet wider and straightening his spine, so as to not actually have the woman come over. He knows he’s supposed to know her name but he doesn’t, he doesn’t remember anyone’s name here. 

His front teeth sink into his bottom lip and he rubs his finger against the cufflink of his opposite sleeve. Cufflinks. They’re completely impractical, not to mention unnecessary in this day and age, machines can sew buttons onto the ends of his shirt sleeves that are far more practical than bits of metal that he can never seem to get on or take off by himself. Nancy always has to help him. He hates that he’s just turned twelve now and his nanny still has to help him get dressed. 

“Hi.” A voice and a hand, outstretched towards him, break Dan from his stupor. He’s surprised that someone’s approached him because he was probably scowling again – not that he meant to be, it just happens – but Dan looks up and the hand belongs to a boy who’s actually smiling properly to him. Not just polite smiling, Dan can always tell when someone’s polite smiling, this seems genuine. 

“I’m Phil.” The boy, Phil, says like Dan didn’t already know that. They’d been introduced earlier in the day by their fathers – because the party itself is for Mr. Lester and some project that he’s going to be working on with Dan’s father and the crown – but Phil had disappeared off into the crowd soon after the hand shaking and photo taking had been done and Dan hadn’t seen him since. Phil’s suit is blue – his coat and trousers a dark navy, shirt a pale dusty colour, tie somewhere in between – and it makes his eyes, which are blue as well, but also green and somehow yellow, stand out from his pale skin. 

Dan takes the offered hand, which is warm and sticky with sweat that mingles with the moisture clinging to Dan’s hand, making their skin stick slightly. He finds he doesn’t really mind it though. 

“Daniel,” Dan says, because that’s his name, which his parents named him, which he’s supposed to use in these situations, regardless of how little he actually likes being called it. 

Phil smiles even brighter, somehow not deterred by the fact that Dan hasn’t yet shaken his sourness. 

“Will you be staying in the palace all summer as well?” 

Phil asks and Dan’s surprised by how, well British, he sounds. The Lester family – his father told him, last night, when he wasn’t particularly listening – are from somewhere in Europe. Mr. Lester is staying at Kensington for a few months while he and Dan’s father work on whatever it is Dan’s father works on and he’s brought his family along with him, including their only son, Philip, who is coincidentally, Dan’s age almost exactly, give or take a few months. His mother was thrilled when she heard the news. No doubt excited to have a new excuse to tell Dan that he can’t be playing video games.

“Yes,” he answers Phil a second too late but it doesn’t feel too awkward somehow. Phil’s face lights up yet again at Dan’s agreement. 

Dan can’t imagine that Phil was too pleased with being told that they were going to England for his summer holidays. He probably has loads of friends back in, well, wherever they’re from. Dan can imagine it, Phil with his too bright smile running around with a pack of other boys their age, free to wander around the neighbourhood so long as they make it back home before the streetlights come on. 

Dan’s not allowed to leave the palace by himself - even though he’s twelve now – and Nancy still has to escort him to school still – along with the driver – even though all the other boys in his year go on their own. The whole thing is remarkably unjust but no amount of whining or arguing can change his father’s mind once its set on something, and right now it’s set on how unsafe London is, especially for someone like Dan.

“Have you always lived in London?” Phil pauses for long enough – and stares Dan down with enough eye contact - that it seems he actually expects an answer, not like some of the boys in his classes which just talk at him like a villain laying out his evil plan in the latter half of a movie. 

“As long as I can remember, yeah.” They lived somewhere out in the country when he was very small, but the only thing about that time that has stuck in his brain is being sat on a horse in front of his Mum and fear during a thunderstorm some night in his nursery. Neither counts as a proper memory.

Phil nods. “I’ve only been once before, that I can remember, my Mum says we can when I was little but I must have been too small.”

Dan nods. He fidgets with his cufflink again, then stops for fear that it will slip undone and fall to the ground. Silence stretches between the two boys and it makes the quaking of Dan’s fingers increase. 

“Wha- what year are you in?” He knows, his father told him last night but he can’t think of anything else to say.

“I’m staring year eight in September, you’re the same right?”

Dan nods again but is saved from having to come up with another question for Phil by the approach of a woman, Phil’s mother. Even if Dan hasn’t been introduced to her earlier It would have been easy to pick out the relation to Phil, they have the same kind, almond shaped eyes and thin lips. 

“Oh hello, Daniel,” she says in the accent he expected from Phil, but can’t actually recognize the origin of. 

He tries to smile politely, but she thankfully doesn’t give him a moment to get a word in. 

“It’s so nice you boys are getting along already. I hate to break you two up, but Phil your father wants to introduce you to Mr. Patel, and I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other later.”

Phil doesn’t quite frown but his smile drops considerably. Dan puts together the correct pieces of himself, the ones that Mrs. Lester expects, and manages an at least somewhat convincing smile. 

“Of course, Mrs. Lester, we’ll have all summer.”

“That’s right Daniel.” She smiles back and looks for a moment like she’s going to pat his cheek before stopping herself. “Come along now, Phil.” Her whole arm steers Phil’s shoulders back into the crowd as he shoots Dan an apologetic and exasperated smile. 

><

The next day the family sits in the dining room as morning sunshine streams through the far wall windows. Dan’s father has the business section of The Times splayed out over the table, his teacup saucer covering the latter half of a headline that reads ‘Falling Oil Prices Drive-‘, and Dan’s mother sits at the opposite end of the long table with the arts section. Dan himself is slumped over his chair in the middle, more than an arm’s reach away from both his parents and picking apart his croissant one flake of pastry at a time. 

He yawns but it doesn’t attract either of their attention to him. He wishes he were still in bed. Why his parents insist that he gets up at his regular school hour, regardless of whether or not there is actually school that day, he will never understand. 

His father licks his thumb to turn the page of the paper, still reading as he speaks forward. “Be sure to be kind to Mr. Lester’s son, Daniel.”

“Yes, Father.”

His mother sets her teacup down on the saucer and a shadow emerges from the wall to refill it. 

“I saw the two of you speaking yesterday, are you getting on all right?”

“Yes, Mummy.” Dan pulls off another layer of pastry.

“This is a very important relationship for us to build. You boys are both the futures of your countries, you don’t want to muck up relations just because of some boyhood quarrel.”

“Of course, Father.”

“And this project is an excellent thing for us, for Britain. Your mother and I know that, your Grandfather knows it,” he puts a heavy emphasis, as he always does, when speaking of Dan’s Grandfather but he still doesn’t look up from his paper. “We need to be sure that you understand it as well.”

“I understand.” Truthfully, he hasn’t got a clue what’s going on, what the project is, where Phil and his father are even from really, but he won’t be telling his father that, or his Grandfather.

Only now does his father look up and study Dan. He struggles not to cower under the gaze but it only lasts a moment. 

“Very well.”

The room falls back into the silence of clinking plates. 

“Don’t forget that Mrs. Powell is coming this afternoon.” His mother doesn’t look up from the paper. “Have you practiced adequately?”

“Yes.” Dan tries to make his voice pleasant but the prospect of his piano lesson – or rather of his piano teacher – is stomach turning. The woman is definitely a witch. If he had a teacher that wasn’t utterly terrifying, he might actually like playing. 

“What are you learning?” His father asks, also still engrossed in his paper. 

“Chopin, a nocturne.” He picks up his own teacup nosily, clattering the bottom on the edge of the little plate, and wishes that there was actual tea – or better, coffee – in it rather than hot chocolate. His mother’s eye twitches at the sound but she doesn’t interrupt. 

“Good, good.” His father finally looks up. “And you’re finding that properly challenging?”

“Yes, Father.” Dan struggles not to roll his eyes. Heaven forbid he play anything that he actually enjoy, not just the crap that’s supposed to teach him to be better, to push his limitations further.

“Good, good.” He resumes his reading. 

“May I be excused?”

His mother looks up now. “Finish your breakfast.”

Dan supresses a groan. “I’m not hungry.” In fact, he feels a little sick now, thinking of Mrs. Powell, or Maureen as she makes him call her. 

“If you’re sure.” Her eyes dart between him and his plate, still filled with his breakfast, now just picked apart. 

Nodding, he starts to push his chair out when his father interrupts the movement. 

“Wait a second, Daniel.” 

Dan’s mind wants to scream, that’s his father’s ‘it’s time to learn something’ voice, which means that he’ll be caught, stuck at the table, for ages now, depending on the subject. Being a prince sucks. 

“Yes, Father?”

“What have you learned of the oil crisis?”

He sighs and tries to turn his tired mind to the subject and pull up some kind of relevant information, the wheel is stuck though, too many late nights in a row, under his covers playing his DS, and there’s nothing there to tell. 

“I’m not sure, Father.”

“Well,” the man starts, and Dan stops listening.


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a work of fiction.

Dan sits with his summer reading assignments, a book open in his lap - although he’s not entirely confident what it’s about – when there’s a sharp knock on the living room door. Nancy, who was a moment ago sitting in the chair beside him, knitting but also checking that he was still turning the pages, stands to open it. From his angle, Dan can’t see who’s behind the door once it’s opened but he can hear the voice spilling though.

“I was just wondering if Dan-Daniel would be able to join me on the lawn, it’s such a nice day out.” Phil’s voice sounds more than a little nervous, which is something that Dan hasn’t experienced from him yet. Although he’s only met the other boy twice now. First at the initial party for Mr. Lester, then two nights ago when his mother invited the whole family to dine with them in the evening. Phil hadn’t been anything but polite and cordial at both occasions. Dan wasn’t sure if he was actually capable of anything else, he knows boys like that. 

“Well, I’m sorry Phillip but-“

Dan’s out of his chair. “I can do my readings on the lawn.” He jumps over to Nancy’s elbow, can see the swatch of black hair standing in the hallway. “I’m sure Phillip has summer work as well, don’t you?” He gives Phil a meaningful look and hopes that the other boy is not as terrible a liar as Dan expects. 

“Oh,” Phil stutters, “Yes, I do have reading to do. How, how silly of me I forgot my book.”

Dan cringes but turns his eyes up to Nancy. “Please, may I?”

She sighs, “Oh very well. But if you don’t get anything done today, it’ll mean double the work next week, remember that.” As she says it she smiles though, with half of her mouth turned up more than the other. 

“Thank you!” Dan beams, already slipping past her out the door before she can change her mind. 

“Wait just a moment, boys, I’ll get you a blanket so you don’t stain your trousers on the grass.” 

Dan rolls his eyes but he’s still grinning when he meets Phil’s gaze. In the moment between when Nancy strides off and returns with the old woolen blanket, Dan’s eyes go from staring into Phil’s to having dropped to the floor in awkward silence. He can already feel the hint of a blush creeping up the back of his neck when he all but grabs the blanket from Nancy and starts walking down the hall. 

“Do you actually have summer reading?” 

Phil scratches the back of his neck. “Well, yes, I just hadn’t started it yet.”

Dan smiles, biting down on his tongue to stop the laughter. 

“Should we go get my books? In case she comes down to check?” 

“No, she’s accepted defeat today. Besides, she knew I wasn’t really reading actually, just turning the pages every few minutes.”

Phil laughs properly at that, his hair falls across his eyes and Dan can’t help but grin back at him. 

Down on the lawn in front of the palace Dan shakes out the old blanket. As much as he’d like to put green-brown stains in the knees and bottom of his beige trousers the resulting lecture from both his mother – if she spared him a long enough glance to notice – and Nancy just wouldn’t be worth it. The boys settle down in the middle of the square patch of grass, away from the shade of the trees that line the walkway. 

Phil sprawls across the blanket, laying on his back and staring up into the sunny sky while Dan perches at the corner with his legs folded underneath him. He watches Phil’s face, washed even paler by the stark sunlight, while the other boy closes his eyes. 

Dan bites his lip. “Can I ask you something?” He doesn’t want to be rude, but his curiosity always does seem to get the better of him. 

Phil’s eyes pop open and his neck turns towards Dan, once he sees Dan sitting he rights himself as well. “Sure.”

“Why do you sound British?” The question has been bothering Dan since he first heard Phil speak. The mystery only deepened once he noticed that both of Phil’s parents spoke in some kind of European accent, like Dan initially expected Phil to. 

Phil laughs, brighter than the sunlight, with his head fallen back. “I’ve been at Bilton Grange since I was seven.”

Boarding school, that makes sense. Bilton Grange isn’t in London and he’s not sure exactly where it actually is, but he’s heard somebody speak of going there, or their child going there, at some point. 

“Oh.” Dan blushes. 

“Where do you go?”

“Wetherby, it’s a day school.” It’s also where his father and uncle and grandfather went, serving as Dan’s own quiet brand of hell. 

“That must be nice, to still live with your family.”

Dan can feel his face twitch even though he didn’t want it to. He doesn’t want Phil to feel bad for him. He’s seen Phil interact with his parents a grand total of twice and he can already tell that Phil’s is a different scenario than his own. There wasn’t the same distance between them as there is between Dan and his parents.

“Or not.” Phil smiles and it’s a little pitying but Dan’s had much worse, like the looks his teacher – and every other in the school – gave him when neither of his parents showed up to see him in the year end play. 

Phil’s face perks up. “Your turn.”

“What?” Dan squints. 

“You asked a question, then I asked a question, so it’s your turn again.”

“Oh,” Dan blinks and bites his lip. He can’t come up with anything interesting. “What year are you in?” He’s fairly sure he asked that the other day, but he can’t actually remember the answer – he blocks most of what he says during those kinds of parties out of his mind so that he doesn’t have to cringe over his own awkwardness later – and Phil doesn’t seem to mind the repetition. 

“Seven, you’re the same right?”

Dan nods and there’s a moment of quiet when he realizes that Phil is waiting for him to go again. He shakes his head. “That didn’t count.”

Phil frowns. “Fine.” 

Dan watches him look down at his hands while he thinks. 

“Why don’t you like reading?”

Dan frowns, “I don’t dislike reading; I dislike reading what other people tell me to read.” If he could read Lemony Snicket all the time, he’d have no problem with reading. 

Phil chuckles. “Alright, your go again.”

Letting his hand drift through the grass, Dan thinks. He grips on blade at its base with two fingers and tries to peel it from the earth without breaking off the root. It doesn’t work, the blade rips in two before it the earth gives it away even a millimetre. 

“How did you know to call me ‘Dan’?” He doesn’t look at Phil while he clarifies, he doesn’t want Phil to think he’s weird. Another piece of grass rips off. “Earlier, when you were talking to Nancy, you corrected yourself, but you called me ‘Dan’ first.”

“Your eyebrow twitches every time someone calls you ‘Daniel’, I noticed it at dinner the other night. It was sorta funny, but I assumed that you didn’t really like it. I can call you something else if you want.” 

When Dan finally looks up at Phil he meets his eyes from under his lashes. “No, Dan is fine.”

Phil scratches at his ear. “Why did you introduce yourself to me as ‘Daniel’ after we first met?”

Dan sighs. “Because that’s the name I’m supposed to use. My mother doesn’t like nicknames and my father thinks they’re not proper.”

“Oh,” Phil whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Dan shrugs. “It’s just a name.” He swallows hard and asks another question.

They continue for two hours, passing questions back and forth – slowly slipping from the letter of the game, asking for follow up’s, explanations, opinions, so that they’ve fallen to a conversation - until the sky is painted over with clouds, the sun cast aside with the return of the stereotypical British weather. The clouds hold to the sky though, pressing in the warmth the sun left behind, leaving them tacky from humidity but otherwise dry. 

They both lay on the blanket, shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow, staring up into the clouds that feel low enough to form a quilt over them. The odd gardener hustles past but otherwise they are completely alone. 

“Do you like boarding school?” Dan asks, changing the topic entirely, once Phil has trailed off his tangent on the horrors of horse riding and the animals themselves in general. 

“It’s alright. I mean, I miss my parents sometimes but I can call them as often as I like, and yeah, sometimes it’s lonely but summers back home alone are too. I know it’s easier for my parents too, and Father wants me to get the right education, and my Mum always feels guilty when I’m home that she doesn’t have enough time for me, so it’s probably for the best.”

“It isn’t awful? Living with other boys?”

Phil rolls onto his side, propping his head up from his elbow to look at Dan. “No, I mean, some of them aren’t very nice, but most of them are, and the house parents keep everyone getting along.” Phil flings a blade of grass at Dan but he ignores it, picking out the shape of a cat’s ears from within the clouds, trying to find the rest of the face in the shapeless mass. 

“Why?” Phil asks.

Dan sighs. “They,” he doesn’t specify who the ‘they’ refers to, is not exactly sure that he knows himself who it is that wants this, “Want me to go to Eton.” He sighs again. “It’s a-“

“I know Eton,” Phil cuts him off. “My father wants me to go as well, but I don’t know if I’ll be good enough to get in. Though I suppose that’s not…” He trails off and Dan grits his teeth. Anything for His Royal Highness Prince Daniel’s education, no one would dare say no to his father, not when the King of England is a phone call away.

He lets out a bitter chuckle. “No, that’s not,” he agrees. 

“I don’t suppose they,” Phil says the phrase almost comically, like he’s referring to a villain in a plot, the way Hagrid says he instead of Voldemort, but also realizes how silly it is to be speaking of them in such context, “listen to what you want?”

Dan laughs again, anger slipping through the cracks between his clenched teeth, then he sighs and allows his eyes to slip shut for a moment. The thought worms its way into his skull, without his permission, would it really be so bad if Phil was there as well? They’d be in the same year, the same classes, maybe even the same dorm, of course they’d be in the same dorm, Father could make that happen for him, how to convince him though…

Dan shakes his head, blurring the image from his mind. He leans over to look back at Phil. “Well I suppose you’ll just have to work extra hard this year to get your grades up.”

“What?”

“If I’m going to be stuck at boarding school I’d rather be stuck at a boarding school where I have a friend.” He starts out strong with his voice but by the end he’s almost whispering, is Phil his friend? They’ve known each other for less than a week, when does Phil actually qualify as his friend? He doesn’t know. His heart wavers in his chest, uncertain. 

A grin blooms across Phil’s face and it’s like the clouds have slipped away, the sun is shining bright again, though this time not from the sky but from the boy across from Dan. 

“I guess I will.”

Relief washes over Dan faster than the sea’s strongest wave could pull him under. He finds himself matching Phil’s smile without being aware of the contortion of his lips. A bubble of laughter spills over Dan’s lips. 

“What?”

“I guess that means you’re going to have to do your summer reading properly.”

Phil groans, flings his body back against the blanket and covers his face with his hands, it doesn’t hide the smile still gracing his features beneath them. Dan’s chuckle turns to full blown laughter. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, one slipping carelessly down his cheek. The sun in the sky may have disappeared again, but Dan’s found his own personal replacement and it’s a whole lot brighter too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cheesy ending is cheesy, sorry!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think and come chat with me on tumblr over @sinkingsidewalks


End file.
